


Ignition

by NightysWolf



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Chapter 14, F/M, Igfrit Theory, Insomnia, War of the Astral, War of the Astrals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 11:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17487443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightysWolf/pseuds/NightysWolf
Summary: When the god Ifrit is felled in Insomnia by his former love, a connection is established again that was buried under layers of time and the scourge of the stars...





	Ignition

**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit that this fanfiction is one of the category crackfic but I had too many plot bunnies thrown at me in various chats that I just couldn't help myself and for once I thought I break out of the lore and wrote this. Explanations will follow at the end, since they would be a bit spoilerous. :)

Ignis Scientia felt the flames lick upon his uniform when he evaded yet another incoming attack from the Astral. Despite the loss of his vision the young advisor knew exactly where is opponent was and he also knew exactly how he would attack him, once he got another opening but getting that opening was the more difficult part in this. They were attacking Ifrit since only a few minutes but for Ignis it already felt like an eternity and not because of the ferocity of the battle and the danger they were all in. For whatever reason, Ignis couldn't help but feel sorry for the Pyreburner, scarred by the Starscourge and marked as a traitor by his own kind. Evading another attack with a graceful backflip, Ignis brought himself out of attack range for a second to check the battlefield and devise a new plan of action. Prompto Argentum had fallen back out of reach as well for a second to reload his guns, while Gladiolus Amicitia and heir to the throne - Noctis Lucis Caelum were still attacking relentlessly and without holding back. Yet it seemed as if each strike and each hit had literally no effect on the corrupted god and Ignis's mind was racing to find a way out.

They had already used ice spells on Ifrit but the effect had been short lived and Ignis mind was racing. He knew that they still had one or two high tier spells in their arsenal but to which degree would they work against Ifrit, because Ignis had already assumed that the god of fire couldn't be frozen that easily. It had surprised Ignis, that enhancing Noct's weapons with ice did seem to have a better effect, but only for a short amount of time and then they were back to square one again.

Ignis summoned his daggers back onto his hands and readied himself for another attack... and yet for one short moment, something held him back. A faint feeling of sorrow and mourning, a feeling of fear and panic and for another second the fire of the Pyreburner didn't burn him - it felt like an old friend, comforting him and warming him in a dark night. It felt as familiar as the fire in his daggers when he charged them up for a direct attack. Gripping his daggers tighter into his fingers, Ignis could once again feel his thoughts wander and he cursed himself for it. Why couldn't he stay focused on the battle? Why did his thoughts start to wander, whenever the flames came to close to him? Why did it feel as if his mind tried to reach out to something he couldn't see, but from what he knew that it was there.

"Bloody hell," Ignis growled to himself, when his fingers closed even tighter around the handle of his daggers and fighting against the irritating thoughts he raced forward, powering his daggers up with ice again. Striking and hitting Ifrit over and over again, Ignis tried to fight the irritating thoughts that forced themselves into his mind, distracting him and his attention on what had to be done. Once again bringing himself out of reach, while pulling Noctis along, who had taken a hard fall after being swatted down like a fly by a hand - the comparison wasn't even that far away, considering Ifrit had slapped him down - Ignis drew a potion out of the Armiger and crushed it into Noct's back to heal the injuries he surely had sustained not only by the fall alone.

"Any ideas, Ignis?" Noct asked breathless, while the potion did it's job and knitted torn skin and broken bones together again.

Scientia shook his head. "No good ones, aside from the obvious aspects," he replied through gritted teeth, flipping his dagger around his fingers while Prompto closed the distance and went into a crouch next to Ignis, his guns ready for use. "So far my only suggestion is to continue using ice-spells on him until we run out of them. The armiger would be another option we could use."

Noctis shook his head with a growl. "Not yet," he replied. "I still can't summon them, can't grasp them - it's too early."

"Then it's brute force until he falls," Gladio added after he had closed up to his three friends.

"Looks like it," Prompto remarked while he released his guns into the armiger before he withdrew another set from the ether.

For a moment Noctis was staring at Ifrit with a frustrated look. "I could try to use the guns.." he started.

"Not enough fire power - even with the Cerberus we have the problem that he is literally immune to everything that is not ice," Ignis intercepted and that was also the last sentence he could speak, before the group scattered apart to get out of range of the huge sword that Ifrit used. Ignis cursed under his breath before he reached into the armiger again to summon another ice-spell into his hand. The tiny hairs at the back of his neck were standing upright despite Ignis being drenched in sweat, when he focused on the Pyreburner. Listening intently to the sounds of battle, reacting to the changing temperatures and using all his senses to orientate himself, Ignis unleashed the spell upon the god and suddenly, everything seemed to freeze and Ignis felt an icy cold reaching for his heart and pressing his head together.

When the advisor turned around, he noticed that Noctis had started to summon and he didn't summon just any other of the gods. He didn't call on Titan, he didn't call on Leviathan or Ramuh... he was summoning the Glacian, he was calling for the godess of ice to appear at his side... and the pressure only intensified. Ignis gasped for breath - he was named after the fire and he had an affinity for this element but no matter how often Noctis had taken on the aid of the Glacian on their way to the citadel, the cold had never felt this freezing, this harsh and uninvited. Ignis had never been in pain when Noctis had summoned a god, yet in this moment, all Ignis wanted to do, was falling to his knees, wrap his arms around his torso and scream in anguish. What was happening?

Forcing himself to stay on his feet, Ignis moved to the side of the citadel courtyard - out of reach of Ifrit's large sword and also out of reach of Shiva's incarnations that were dancing around the Pyreburner before bringing the soft, cold and deadly diamond dust down onto the corrupted creature. Ignis forced his hurting body back another step, but in the very moment, when Shiva kissed the frozen Pyreburner onto his lips, Ignis wanted to scream when another wave of pain made him feel as if his head was about to split in two. Shiva backed away from the frozen corpse of Ifrit and in the second the body was crumpling like broken building, Ignis fell to his knees, his head cradled in his heat and a silent scream on his lips.

For a splice of time, Ignis didn't know what had happened, but he felt himself loosing control over his body while he had more and more problems to grasp a clear thought. For a moment Ignis wanted to loose consciousness, wanted to fade into darkness to escape the pain that was threatening to split his head apart, but his own stubborn determination held him back and then suddenly his mind started to fell out of place and memories of a life he never lived, a time he had never experienced and lands he had never seen, flooded into his mind. Feelings tumbled over each other, tearing him apart while mending his mind in the same go, his heart was broken and healed in the same moment. The pictures kept coming and Ignis decided to let them flow, let them wash over him instead of fighting them, while his body felt a rush of coldness and heat at the same time.

Ignis tried to hold onto a thin line of sanity in the midst of the storm that was raging in his head and slowly but surely Ignis was able to make out a pattern in what he saw and he began to understand while the flood of impressions began to lessen. Ignis knew enough about the history of Eos and the war of the old times. The creation of mankind, the hatred of the Glacian for the human race and yet also Ifrit's understanding for their struggles. The blooming of their love over the fate of the inhabitants of Eos but also the rise of Solheim and the challenging of the gods which led to a bloody and long war that nearly brought mankind onto the edge of extinction.

The young tactician knew all this, considering he had learned all of it in the long years of study that had prepared him for the position he was supposed the have in his older years. Yet for a moment Ignis felt as if he didn’t remember all these facts by having read about them, but by having experienced them himself. A thought came into Ignis mind, while a flood of images was still tormenting his brain and while the magic of the kings was nothing new for Ignis, he felt another magic seeping into his bones like blood into a cloth. Shiva, the Glacian had given up her astral body after being slain by the empire and was walking the worlds now in the shape of a goddess... or as the messenger Gentiana. What if...?

A memory of his own resurfaced and for a moment, Ignis could do nothing else but staring ahead, half in shock, half in understanding but blind for the turmoils around him. He remembered the day when the little Noctis had come up to him, shortly after they had met. “Ignis?” The raven haired boy had asked. “Why have you been given the name Ignis?” At that time Ignis hadn’t been able to answer the question and Noctis had forgotten about it, but Ignis hadn’t and so he had asked his parents about it. At first his parents hadn’t wanted to answer him and Ignis did let the topic fall for the time being but a few years later he came back to it again and this time he pressed his parents for the truth. “The god gave you your name," they had said. "Because you are the true heir to the throne of fire.”

Sitting on his knees, staring to the distance Ignis finally understood the meanings of these words and when Ignis did let his head fall forward, he saw that the ground he had been kneeling on, had transformed into a mirror but the reflection staring back at him was not his own... Staring back at him, was the face of the Pyreburner - eyes blazing and wild, the skin unmarred by the scourge that had infected the body. Since 10 years Ignis had seen nothing, had been shrouded not only into the darkness of the world but also the darkness of his own vision and not seeing his own reflection froze Ignis heart for a moment, but then he shook his head. "I am, what I am," he whispered. "I am my past, I am my present and I am my future. I am you, Ifrit.. but I am also myself."

Closing his eyes, Ignis lifted his hand and smashed it into the mirror below, causing it to crack and in the part of a second before the mirror broke completely, giving Ignis free to fall into the eternal darkness, Ignis saw his own reflection in it. Worn down, bloody, one eye scarred shut and the other in a milky-green but he was himself.

When Ignis opened his eye again, he was greeted by the familiar darkness that had accompanied him the last then years and with his other senses slowly creeping back, Ignis could make out his surroundings and the positions of his friends. The advisor could still feel the chill wind of Shiva's presence but it didn't feel cold anymore. It was like a comforting, cooling wind around his heart... a heart that had suddenly experienced so much more. For a moment Ignis felt strange but then he started to realize what it was. All his life, he had felt as if he had been missing something. He had always felt that there had to be more to his duty and his loyality... and to his heart.

Carefully Ignis brought himself back onto his feet, flexing his fingers underneath his gloves, feeling a raw fire burning deep inside him and Ignis couldn't help but wonder if slaying the astral body of the Pyreburner had set free his soul from it's prison in a body infected by this sickness. His thoughts were still racing, memories of his former life sorting itself alongside the memories of the life he head lead the past 30 years and Ignis couldn't help but feeling a pain in his heart. Why did the thought of loosing Noct hurt so much in this very moment and Ignis realized that even as a god incarnated, there was no way for him to save his best friend.

"Ignis?" Noctis asked as he approached him with careful steps, his cape burned off his back by Ifrit's attacks. "Are you alright?"

With a soft sigh Ignis was nodding, before he turned around into the direction of his king. "I am alright," he replied softly. "Don't mind me."

"Not gonna let this slip, Igster," Prompto remarked from the side, before he released his guns back into the armiger. "You suddenly looked as if you would faint and then you went down for nearly a minute."

While he was still slightly confused inside, Ignis decided to maintain a professional facade for now until he was able to settle completely with what had happened and so he straightened his gloves. "Don't worry. I will be alright," the advisor insisted and turned towards the citadel, ready to face the last challenge... but his legs refused to move, when his eyes fell on a person carefully walking toward them with gracious steps.

"Gentiana," Noctis said softly but unlike normally the steps of the high messenger were not directed towards the king of Lucis. Gentiana walked up to Ignis with unfaltering movements, her black skirt falling into her strides like water, her hands folded into each other in the most graceful ways.

Ignis could sense her presence and feel her approaching and he felt his heart beat faster in his chest. After an eternity, Gentiana held her steps before him and in that very moment, she also opened her eyes, her dark green irises falling onto the milky ones of Ignis. For a moment she just stood there, looking at Ignis, but then she carefully lifted the hand without the glove and trailed her fingers softly down the chiseled cheek of the royal advisor. "Do you remember, my love? Do you remember the bond we once shared?"

For a moment Ignis wasn't sure how to reply, because he was torn deep down. He still had his duty to Noctis - not only as his royal retainer but now even more as the god whose power the king had received to defeat the darkness, but his heart yearned for the touch of the goddess he had loved so long ago. Finally Ignis released a small sigh, before he himself lifted his hand and placed it over Gentiana's, that was still trailing the skin of his cheek. "Yes, my love - I do remember," he replied. "Feels like a life time ago."

"It was a life time ago," the high messenger agreed. "I missed you, my love." Loosing the grip on Gentiana's hand, Ignis allowed himself a soft smile before he leaned forward and pressed his head against Gentiana's forehead, breathing in her scent like a drowning man was breathing air. Ignis could feel Gentiana return the smile before she leaned into the closeness they shared and softly pressed her lips to his. For a split second, Ignis was surprised, panicked and frozen likewise, but then he fell into a rhythm that was old and new at the same time, familiar and strange. Gentiana's kiss became more offensive and the goddess deepened the touch, her tongue licking over his upper lip, her teeth nibbling at his lower one and at one point Ignis simply gave in. He couldn't stand against Gentiana in any way - he had never been able to and right now he also didn't want to. Closing his blind eye Ignis returned the kiss with everything he had, entangling his tongue with Gentiana's, tasting her, feeling her and without even noticing Ignis wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her closer while his other hand wandered to her neck, to her hair and...

"Achemmm..." When Gladio loudly cleared his throat, Ignis couldn't help but chuckle into the kiss before he broke it completely and also loosened the grip he had on Gentiana, before taking a step back. When he moved his head, his now even more hyperactive senses registered the confused and dumbfounded looks on the faces of his friends and Ignis knew that he would most likely have to explain some things now... even if he wasn't so sure about some of them himself.

"My apologies, but I have to leave," Ignis whispered softly before he made another step back and with this he completely stepped out of Gentiana's reach, who had folded her hands again and her eyes had fallen shut.  
  
"Take care, my love. There is still a long road for you and the king ahead, so don't falter now," she said.

"We won't falter and we won't fall," Ignis replied in a strong voice, still ignoring the looks on the faces of his friends who definitely got more and more confused with every passing second. "I give you my word."

With a smile on her lips, Gentiana bowed, falling back into the formal stance of her role, before she turned around to take her leave. "The high messenger is pleased to see the prophecy coming to it's fullfillment. The high messenger is also pleased that the incarnation of the Pyreburner has decided on boxerbrief instead of staying on traditional ways."

If someone would have ever been able to hear a flea cough... this would have been the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> So, where is the idea for this story coming from? It actually started with the simply fact that - believe it or not - Ignis and Ifrit actually share the meshes and the textures of the face in FFXV. There are modifications on the face textures of course but all in all it's clear that the face is indeed the one of Ignis. Sized down, Ifrits' frame nearly completely matches the one of Ignis and going from there and the fact that Ignis is the latin name for "fire" the idea took shape and form. Most of the shape and form of the story developed in a conversation with @KatelynnKittaly, so many kudos and thanks to her for her inspiration and ideas.
> 
> Render can be found here: https://www.deviantart.com/nightyswolf/art/Ignition-781984553


End file.
